Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Puppets and birds.

I heard a ruckus and found you standing up in the door frame. Yelling out into the hall at the top of your lungs.

F-BOMB!

F-BOMB!

F-BOMB!

I'm not even sure what you were so mad about. But you were mad. So mad that your colorful choice of words drowned out any black and white issues that you needed to communicate. The lady in the other bed in your room looked scared. I just wanted you to settle down.

Your actions fit certain parts of what some would expect of you from your history. A hard life and a stronghold of crack cocaine addiction. In and out of the hospital for complications of both. So you hollering out of the door and into the hallway gave people that same unease as walking by an erratically behaving addict on a downtown street.

But see, I had spoken to you long enough to know that there was more to you than the words someone probably uttered under their breath. You were charming and intelligent. Witty and insightful. And you knew all about Atlanta history which, to me, was really cool. I wanted you to calm down. Calm down long enough to perhaps get some help this time.

F-BOMB!

F-BOMB!

F-BOMB!

I placed a hand on your shoulder. A bold move, I know, but I knew that deep down you were a pussy cat. Or rather a feral cat backed into a corner but one who had already smelled my hand and knew I was a friend and not a foe.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I gotta get the --F-BOMB-- out of here." That was your answer. Then you said a lot of things that didn't quite connect for me. Something about how you once had insurance and how you were born at Grady. All of it suggested that you felt like you deserved a more VIP treatment than what we were giving to you. So I apologized and asked you to sit on the bed.

"I'm sorry, Miss Manning," you said. "I'm sorry."

I looked you in the eye. "That's okay."

I sat beside you on your bed and asked a little more about why you were so upset. Still, even with you sitting calmly it wasn't making sense. None of it. So eventually, I stopped trying to make it fit into my own logic and just listened. I didn't reason or anything. I just sat there hearing your flight of ideas floating around that room.

The lady in the next bed seemed to relax some.

So we had a heart to heart and eventually you were calm. You apologized some more and things seemed better.

As the afternoon progressed, I kept finding you out of your room. In the hallway near the vending machine. Near the elevator. And once all the way outside in the smoking area. Pacing around and talking loud.

We had bonded so I walked right up to you and told you what I was thinking. "I don't want you to use. I don't. You are scaring me being out here like this."

But I knew that this part was out of your control. Your body was just a marionette on a string and crack cocaine had the whole puppet show staged and blocked.

Act 1 - The elevators, Act 2 - Something else.

"I'm leaving for the day. We still have work to do on you. Don't go, okay?" I said it that way because I feared your puppeteer would have you dance right down the street and around that corner. I had to at least try.

"Okay, Miss Manning. Okay," you replied. I could tell you wanted to mean it.

So I waved good bye to you and shook your hand tight. And when I did, I noticed the burns on your thumb from holding glass pipes. And that? It put a shiver through me because I knew that what caused it was a big mountain and me and my little bag of Internal Medicine tricks was the tiniest of mole hills.

But so what. I had to at least try.

This morning when I came to work, your room was cleaned out. The bed was made and ready for a new patient. I hadn't discharged you.

13 comments:

I'm so sorry, Dr. M. I know that must have hurt. Knowing there are some things even the best doctor(s) can't fix - it's got to be a very hard thing. Thinking of you this morning. You'll be in my (non-denominational) prayers, if that's okay. And if it isn't, just say so. Hope today is better.

I'm a bleeding heart, that's for sure. And it's crazy. . . some part of me always believes that everyone can be "saved." But now I know that we save each other piece by piece, smile by smile--not in one fell swoop like Superman.

made me think of someone i know who's trying to beat his demon addiction. think i will light a candle for him. thanks for introducing me to this song. She reminds me of a cousin of mine who is drifting now. not with drugs or drink. age, hard life i guess. i do find the backwards flying in the video sort of disturbing. i have never seen a bird thrown themselves backwards off of a branch.

Your sister posted your blog over at a new Facebook group called Bloggers Like Me. I am so happy to have found your blog!!

I've known I would be a doctor from before I could read. Lots of years of school, detours and traumatic life experiences later, I am finally ready to move full steam ahead in peace (sans anxiety). I've been out of college and grad school six years now, but I've been counseled to take a few more science courses to "prove" myself and of course retake the MCAT. I am excited about it all. I will be visiting your blog often. It's so encouraging and inspiring! Thank you for sharing.

Welcome to Atlanta.

"Becoming is better than being." - Carol Dweck

Who me? I'm just glad to be here.

Honestly? I write this blog to share the human aspects of medicine + teaching + work/life balance with others and myself -- and to honor the public hospital and her patients--but never at the expense of patient privacy or dignity.
Thanks for stopping by! :)

What's the point?

"One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends of how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give."

~ James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

"Do it for the story." ~ Antoinette Nguyen, MD, MPH

Details, names, time frames, etc. are always changed to protect anonymity. This may or may not be an amalgamation of true,quasi-true, or completely fictional events. But the lessons? They are always real and never, ever fictional. Got that?